Juanito sat down in content, and as a mark of gratitude stuck out his tongue at his prompter, who had arisen blushing with shame and muttering incoherent excuses.
For a moment Padre Millon regarded him as one gloating over a favorite dish. What a good thing it would be to humiliate and hold up to ridicule that dudish boy, always smartly dressed, with head erect and serene look! It would be a deed of charity, so the charitable professor applied himself to it with all his heart, slowly repeating the question.
“The book says that the metallic mirrors are made of brass and an alloy of different metals—is that true or is it not true?”
“So the book says, Padre.”
“Liber dixit, ergo ita est. Don’t pretend that you know more than the book does. It then adds that the glass mirrors are made of a sheet of glass whose two surfaces are well polished, one of them having applied to it an amalgam of tin, nota bene, an amalgam of tin! Is that true?”
“If the book says so, Padre.”
“Is tin a metal?”
“It seems so, Padre. The book says so.”
“It is, it is, and the word amalgam means that it is compounded with mercury, which is also a metal. Ergo, a glass mirror is a metallic mirror; ergo, the terms of the distinction are confused; ergo, the classification is imperfect—how do you explain that, meddler?”
He emphasized the ergos and the familiar “you’s” with indescribable relish, at the same time winking, as though to say, “You’re done for.”
“It means that, it means that—” stammered Plácido.
“It means that you haven’t learned the lesson, you petty meddler, you don’t understand it yourself, and yet you prompt your neighbor!”
The class took no offense, but on the contrary many thought the epithet funny and laughed. Plácido bit his lips.
“What’s your name?” the professor asked him.
“Plácido,” was the curt reply.
“Aha! Plácido Penitente, although you look more like Plácido the Prompter—or the Prompted. But, Penitent, I’m going to impose some penance on you for your promptings.”
Pleased with his play on words, he ordered the youth to recite the lesson, and the latter, in the state of mind to which he was reduced, made more than three mistakes. Shaking his head up and down, the professor slowly opened the register and slowly scanned it while he called off the names in a low voice.
“Palencia—Palomo—Panganiban—Pedraza—Pelado—Pelaez—Penitente, aha! Plácido Penitente, fifteen unexcused absences—”
Plácido started up. “Fifteen absences, Padre?”
“Fifteen unexcused absences,” continued the professor, “so that you only lack one to be dropped from the roll.”
“Fifteen absences, fifteen absences,” repeated Plácido in amazement. “I’ve never been absent more than four times, and with today, perhaps five.”
“Jesso, jesso, monseer,”31 replied the professor, examining the youth over his gold eyeglasses. “You confess that you have missed five times, and God knows if you may have missed oftener. Atqui, as I rarely call the roll, every time I catch anyone I put five marks against him; ergo, how many are five times five? Have you forgotten the multiplication table? Five times five?”
“Twenty-five.”
“Correct, correct! Thus you’ve still got away with ten, because I have caught you only three times. Huh, if I had caught you every time—Now, how many are three times five?”
“Fifteen.”
“Fifteen, right you are!” concluded the professor, closing the register. “If you miss once more—out of doors with you, get out! Ah, now a mark for the failure in the daily lesson.”
He again opened the register, sought out the name, and entered the mark. “Come, only one mark,” he said, “since you hadn’t any before.”
“But, Padre,” exclaimed Plácido, restraining himself, “if your Reverence puts a mark against me for failing in the lesson, your Reverence owes it to me to erase the one for absence that you have put against me for today.”
His Reverence made no answer. First he slowly entered the mark, then contemplated it with his head on one side—the mark must be artistic—closed the register, and asked with great sarcasm, “Abá, and why so, sir?”
“Because I can’t conceive, Padre, how one can be absent from the class and at the same time recite the lesson in it. Your Reverence is saying that to be is not to be.”
“Nakú, a metaphysician, but a rather premature one! So you can’t conceive of it, eh? Sed patet experientia and contra experientiam negantem, fusilibus est arguendum, do you understand? And can’t you conceive, with your philosophical head, that one can be absent from the class and not know the lesson at the same time? Is it a fact that absence necessarily implies knowledge? What do you say to that, philosophaster?”
This last epithet was the drop of water that made the full cup overflow. Plácido enjoyed among his friends the reputation of being a philosopher, so he lost his patience, threw down his book, arose, and faced the professor.
“Enough, Padre, enough! Your Reverence can put all the marks against me that you wish, but you haven’t the right to insult me. Your Reverence may stay with the class, I can’t stand any more.” Without further farewell, he stalked away.
The class was astounded; such an assumption of dignity had scarcely ever been seen, and who would have thought it of Plácido Penitente? The surprised professor bit his lips and shook his head threateningly as he watched him depart. Then in a trembling voice he began his preachment on the same old theme, delivered however with more energy and more eloquence. It dealt with the growing arrogance, the innate ingratitude, the presumption, the lack of respect for superiors, the pride that the spirit of darkness infused in the young, the lack of manners, the absence of courtesy, and so on. From this he passed to coarse jests and sarcasm over the presumption which some good-for-nothing “prompters” had of teaching their teachers by establishing an academy for instruction in
